Five Ways that Devil's Trap Didn't Happen
by BlueIris08
Summary: A series of twists on the Winchester boys' demonic encounter.
1. Chapter 1

Title: "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" ("Five Ways that Devil's Trap Didn't Happen," 1/4)  
Spoilers: "Devil's Trap"  
Warning: Character Death.

Notes:  
This is the first in a set of five stories in a series entitled "Five Ways that Devil's Trap Didn't Happen." I'll be posting a total of four here at FanFictionNet. The last one (not yet written) will be posted only at my website because it will contain graphic sexual content.

"So. How are we going to do this?" Dean chanced a glance at Sam, who had finally chosen the wrong time to have a violent psychic episode. The weight of the weapon hidden under Dean's jacket was small comfort when he couldn't draw it without his hands shaking.

"With dull cliches, I guess." The demon wearing his father's body flicked his eyes over to Dean before returning to watch Sam brace himself against the wall, struggling against whatever sights or sensations were bombarding him. "You know, I have something you want, you have something I want, I'm here to trade."

"It's the twenty-first century, man. Move past the barter economy." Dean stepped sideways toward his brother, keeping his back to the wall and his eyes on his father. "We got sick of the goddamned Colt and threw it into the river."

His father's face creased into faint lines of contempt. "It was getting as tired as your sense of humor," he agreed, "but I came for that." He jerked his head towards Sam.

Dean's hand was almost steady after all as he yanked the revolver from its holster. Almost. "Huh. Guess we didn't throw it away," he said.

"Imagine that." His father tossed him another dismissive glance.

Sam groaned sharply, throwing his head so far back that the tendons in his neck strained. Dean started as a chair slid across the room to slam against the back wall, and the corner of his mind that was always on the hunt noted that it was highly unlikely they'd taken refuge in a poltergeist's residence. He kept the weapon trained on his father as he moved toward Sam. It bothered him that the demon wasn't trying to stop him.

The demon tilted his head as if in thought, and then nodded, smirking, like he'd come to a decision. The shadows the firelight cast on his face were so picturesquely sinister that it wouldn't have surprised Dean if he'd chosen to stand there just for that.

"Do you really think you can kill him?" he asked, gesturing to John's body. "John trusts you not to."

Sam let out a sudden gasp and went limp, sliding down to the floor. Dean knelt next to him. "Sammy?"

Sam shook his head. "Something's wrong," he gritted out. "With me."

"Well," the demon said, "that depends on your point of view."

Sam arched into another wave of pain, clenching his teeth. Dean cocked the gun. "Stop it."

The demon smirked again. "What makes you think I'm doing it?"

Dean didn't bother to answer. "Sam?"

Sam's flailing hand grabbed at Dean's wrist. Maybe it was reassuring that he recognized Dean's voice, but his hand was too warm, and something was wrong as hell if his brother didn't know better than to pin his arm during a confrontation.

Dean carefully put on his poker face, his tell-free bluffing face, before he looked his father straight in the eye and got down to business. The demon had to be here for the Colt; he could have taken Sammy before if he'd wanted, and rule number one of bargaining was to start high, come down to what you wanted. It was a mistake for Dean to have let himself be goaded into showing he had the gun, and he wasn't about to be the one to suggest making the swap. Except he didn't have a particularly plausible high alternative.

"Here's the trade," he said anyway. "You let my dad go and leave, and we'll give you a three-day head start before we come after you."

Another smirk. "Quick lesson in the barter economy, son. You have to offer something the other party wants."

Sam's shaking grew worse; his fingers clawed painfully into Dean's arm, and he dug the nails of his other hand into the floorboards. Then a window blew out, and fuck, that was disconcerting.

"Always was a late bloomer," their father said nonsensically. He lifted his eyebrows, still worrisomely indifferent to the weapon pointed at him. "You know, Dean, I could have taken you boys any time in the last six months. Did you wonder why I waited until tonight?"

That couldn't be good. "Not really." Don't ask. Don't take the bait. Dean freed his arm as Sam's body relaxed. "Hold it together, Sammy," he whispered. His brother nodded shakily, panting, his eyes closed.

"It's because tonight," the demon continued, ignoring him, "little Sammy comes of age. Those are just growing pains."

Speaking to Dean but looking at Sam, he went on, "This is the deal: I let go of Johnny here—good riddance—and take Sam." Again, an odd emphasis on Sam's name. "And if you put the gun down and get out of the way, I won't rip you to shreds right here in front of them."

"Do it, Dean. Move," Sam muttered, trying to slide away from him.

His father looked pained at Sam's offered sacrifice. "He'll outgrow that."

"Uh-huh," Dean answered. Don't get pulled into his game.

The gun was getting heavy.

"We all know you're not going to shoot your daddy," the demon said matter-of-factly. "So just step aside."

Dean steadied the weapon as his gut twisted. Think of Sam, pale and drained next to him. Concentrate on the one thing that he and his father would agree was worth sacrificing their lives for.

"If my dad was really in there, you'd know that I'll die before I let you hurt my brother. And so would he."

"Your brother," the demon said softly as Sam suddenly groaned and thrashed again, slamming his head against the wall. The dishes in the small kitchenette were the next casualty.

Dean reached for his arm and jerked back at the heat. Still training the Colt on his father, he brushed his hand against Sam's forehead, found that he was running so hot that if they were anywhere else, Dean would think the convulsions were febrile seizures.

The demon watched with faint distaste. "Let me tell you something about your brother before you kill your father for him."

"If I listen, will you wrap this up?" Dean asked, trying to match his sneer. Sam collapsed, wheezing, and it didn't matter if it was the demon's attacks or something else—he had to stop whatever was happening to Sam. Now.

"Before you dropped out of school, Dean..." The demon paused and cocked his head thoughtfully. "By the way, that wasn't really about hunting full-time. John knew you weren't smart enough to finish, wanted to spare you the embarrassment of flunking out. His idea of good parenting."

"Get to the fucking point," Sam hissed.

"Watch how you talk to your father, boy." The demon looked Sam up and down, curling his lip. Dean had never before appreciated the range of derisive expressions his father possessed. "And speaking of embarrassments..."

"What, he was disappointed in me?" Sam choked out a weak laugh. "You want to hurt me, tell me something I don't know."

The demon narrowed John's eyes and Sam threw back his head as whatever that was hit him once more. He still managed to reach into the bratty depths of his soul—or shallows, it's not like Sam's brattiness had ever been hidden—to pull out his own mocking grin as he fought it. That was a Winchester for you.

"Getting there," his father said before looking back to Dean. "The mothers always know—we have to get rid of them. And the fathers can usually tell something is off. But you never guessed. Never had a clue. Always protected him, always took care of him." He shook his head with disdain, and his eyes glowed yellow again.

"The fucking point?" Dean prompted, but suddenly it came to him, a prescient inkling of what his father was saying. Of the lie the demon was spinning to make him give up Sam.

"Before you dropped out of school," the demon repeated with quiet relish, "did you learn how cuckoos raise their young?"

He let the question hang in the air, softly self-satisfied. Sam's breath rattled as the latest fit passed.

Dean stood and stepped fully in front of Sam. "C'mon, man. Can't you come up with something better than that?"

The demon shrugged. "Explains a lot, doesn't it?" He nodded toward the wreckage across the room. "It's not natural, what Sam can do. He's a freak, you've said it yourself."

Dean shook his head, tamping down every reservation he'd ever had about Sam's bizarre...abilities. "Doesn't make your story any less crap."

"You think?" The demon glanced toward the small table across the room, which slid neatly over to join the chair Sam had broken against the wall. "Don't you see the family resemblance?"

"You're gonna have to do better than that," Dean snapped, getting pulled in in spite of himself.

"Seen too much weird stuff to be thrown by that, huh? Then think closer to home." His father's tone was just right—John's sincerity urging him to believe, and demonic glee, Yeah, maybe I'm yanking your chain. "Has Sam ever fit into your family? It explains why he and John never liked each other. Why Sam left as soon as he could. Tell me, Dean, how eager was he to rescue your father when we took him?"

He paused to let it sink it. Sam's gasps were weaker and he didn't speak—maybe he was too out of it to hear or understand.

"Your father always knew, deep down, that something was wrong with Sammy. He always left you to look out for him because he couldn't make himself do it. Then, as soon as Sam could leave the nest"—the demon's lips quirked—"John let him go. Hell, he threw him out, knowing exactly what's out there. And yeah, Dean, Daddy is still in here, and no, he wouldn't die for Sam. He believes me."

His tone shifted: still a touch of malice—why would you believe me?—but more steady conviction. More like Dad. "Think about Sam. How many times has he left you? How ready is he to do it again? Sam thinks he loves you, but you know what love really is, and you know he doesn't.

"It's not because of you," he added with false kindness. "It's just not in his nature."

Exploding light bulbs signaled the beginning of Sam's next convulsion. Dean looked down at his brother's contorted face. Just the firelight, it was just the firelight, or maybe his own imagination that made Sam's eyes glint yellow.

"That's not your brother," the demon finished, nothing but honesty in his voice now. "It never was. You carried the wrong baby out of the fire."

He stepped forward, and Dean settled into his stance, raised his other hand to brace the weapon. "I'll do it," he said, heart beating off-rhythm, feeling ice and steel clawing through his gut.

"It's all right, son," the demon said in precise mimicry—it had to be mimicry—of his father's soft but implacable command. "Step aside."

"No." He sighted down the barrel.

No hint, no warning—Dean was just flung across the cabin. Only luck and instinct kept the Colt in his hand as he crashed against the wall. "Stop," he grunted, aiming from his prone position as the demon kept moving.

"You sure, Dean? Sure enough to kill your own father?" His father took another step toward Sam, still thrashing helplessly on the floor.

For the first time in twenty years, Dean closed his eyes as he fired a weapon.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: "Intercession"

Rating: T

Category: Gen

Word Count: Double Drabble (200)

Spoilers: "Devil's Trap"

Warning: Character Death

Notes: This is the second in a set of five stories in a series entitled "Five Ways that Devil's Trap Didn't Happen." I'll be posting a total of four here atFanFictionNet.The last one (not yet written) will be posted only at my website because it will contain graphic sexual content.

* * *

Dad, please," Dean gasped, choking on his own blood.

John couldn't block that voice from his awareness, but he kept the revolver trained steadily on his younger son. Sam wasn't strong enough to subdue the demon possessing him; his eyes shifted between yellow and brown as he thrashed on the floor, and his head slammed back against the hard wood as he struggled to keep himself from lunging at his father.

"Dean," Sam's voice said, though whether it was the demon speaking or his son, John couldn't tell.

"Dad," Dean begged.

John steeled himself to pull the trigger. Sam understood, Sam would do the same thing, John was sacrificing his son to save lives, not for revenge. He'd make the same choice if it were Dean instead.

Maybe if he repeated that enough times, it'd be true.

He finally shut out Dean's desperate words, but couldn't stop from catching his breath as Sammy's eyes—Sam's, not the demon's—met his for a second, and Sam knew.

Then his son turned away, stretched his arm toward his brother. "Dean," he whispered again. It wasn't a plea for intercession. It was goodbye.

The Colt's deafening report drowned out Dean's anguished, "Dad, don't!"


	3. Chapter 3

Title: "Deadman's Switch" ("Five Ways that 'Devil's Trap' Didn't Happen," 3/4)  
Word Count: 100 (Drabble)  
Spoilers: Implied "Devil's Trap"  
Warning: Character Death.  
Notes: This is the third in a set of four stories I will be posting here at FFnet. The last one, (not yet written) will be posted only at my website because it will contain graphic sexual content. This story was mostly an experiment in the 100-word genre, and is a little more impressionistic than the others in the series.

* * *

The demon in Dean's shell prowled around him, enraged enough to ignore the storm howling above as it probed at Sam's mind for an opening. He kept up his protective chant as he made a show of resisting, then staggering as it hit a weakness. With a shriek of victory it leapt from Dean to Sam, swirling into him, violating him, polluting him. 

The last thing Sam saw was his brother's horrified face as the demon cut off his chanting, and he hoped like hell God could distinguish his soul from its as the dead silence called down the lightning.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: "Standoff" ("Five Ways that "Devil's Trap Didn't Happen," 4/4)  
Word Count: 300 (Triple Drabble)  
Spoilers: "Devil's Trap"  
Warning: Character Death.  
Notes: This is the fourth in a set of four stories I will be posting here at FFnet. The last one, (not yet written, no estimate for completion available) will be posted only at my website because it will contain graphic sexual content between the Wincester Boys.

* * *

Sam couldn't tell.

He searched his father's face for _something _of what Dean could see, strained his ears for a wrong note or misplaced syncopation in his urgent, impatient words, but there was nothing. Nothing that wasn't Dad.

"Dean..."

Dean shook his head infinitesimally. His jaw was clenched and his face sick.

"Jesus Christ," Sam muttered, half-epithet, half-prayer.

He couldn't tell.

His father didn't flinch at the name, didn't even blink. "It's okay, Sammy, just trust me," he said in the barely-remembered voice that had soothed Sam's nightmares when he was very small. It was his father's voice, and Sam looked to his brother in desperation.

"It's not him." Dean sent him a quick, anguished look before fixing his gaze on their father once more, bringing his free hand up to brace the weapon as his arm trembled with fatigue and adrenaline. "Sammy, I can't...," he whispered, and Sam didn't have a word of reassurance, because Dean was pointing a gun at the man Sam would swear was their father, and nothing could make that okay.

Sam moved to his brother's side and slipped behind him, slow and careful, until he could reach for the Colt. He covered Dean's hand with his own, wrapping his thumb around the weapon's stock, laying his palm over the back of Dean's hand, curling his fingers over his brother's. Dean's skin was corpse-cold, icy as the shards slicing irreparable gashes through Sam's gut.

His father nodded approval. "Give Sam the gun, Dean," he said in the gentle, implacable tone he'd used when one of them balked at a lesson when they were children.

Sam gripped his brother's shoulder. A violent shudder wracked Dean's body but he nodded, and his hands kept their aim true as Sam squeezed their fingers tight on the trigger.


	5. Chapter 5

Notes: This is the much-delayed final installment of my much-delayed "Five Ways that Devil's Trap Didn't Happen series." It implicitly goes off-canon at the end of the ep. No spoilers for Season Two. The characters and pairings: Sam/Demon!Dean, and it's rated M for some slash and disturbing content. If you're the sort that likes more precise warnings, click on the fic and go straight down to the bottom. There are additional notes there.

* * *

The first thing Sam did when he swung into the car was reach for the little pistol hidden in the glove compartment. Although neither of them liked to go unarmed these days—though what Dean liked was strictly academic—Sam left his weapon behind on research trips. University libraries, even in Texas, they'd found, still ban firearms, and the likelihood of getting caught and thrown out was greater than that of encountering a skinwalker disguised as a bleary-eyed econ major or a possessed graduate student dozing on a stack of bound journals. He didn't much care for the omnipresent smell of silver, but it wasn't as if it could harm him.

"Eleventh hour, little brother. Find anything?" he asked in Dean's voice. _He_ couldn't see anything notable in Sam's clenched-jaw expression—Sam had been walking around with his jaw clenched so much that you'd think the boy had tetanus—but he felt some flicker of alertness from Dean before the damned irritant managed to suppress it. "You did," he said.

Sam nodded, still clenched. "We need an isolated place. Another cabin would be good. And a lot of salt."

He put the truck into gear. "What have you got?"

Sam flashed a piece of paper at him. "Basically, a devil's trap powerful enough to hide a living soul. Won't do us any good for killing it, but we should be able to ride out tonight without it finding us."

"Seriously?"

He took the paper from Sam's hand, stifling a grunt of surprise when he saw the design. Whatever book Sam had found had misidentified the protective circle, and it couldn't possibly be effective anyway: over generations of recopying the runes had grown distorted and misshapen, and part of the drawing was lost entirely. Somewhere back in the sketch's ancestry, though, someone had seen the real deal, and there was the remotest chance that someone with the right knowledge and resources could reconstruct it. _Note to self: burn Penn's Rare Books Library, slaughter Religious Studies faculty_. Another errand for Dean to run.

No, he'd use someone else to run it. He really couldn't take much more of Dean.

"I'll be damned," he said for Sam's benefit. "Are you sure it will work?"

Sam clenched some more and stared out the windshield. "No. But we've got nothing else."

"We're gone, dude," he said, thinking how much Dean deserved to die just for making him use that form of address so often. "Now leaving the City of Brotherly Love."

Sam's upper lip twitched.

Dean snarled and beat futilely at his mind, and the worst thing about possessing Dean Winchester, really, was that he couldn't hit the fucker when he got too annoying. Still, it's a small mind that can't find other ways to torment.

"Sammy," he said as he navigated the truck toward the freeway. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Sam stopped clenching and staring and twitching, took in and let out a deep breath, and looked at him with those big, soft, brown eyes that always brought out Dean's comically exploitable mama-bear instincts.

"I know." But Sam still flinched when he reached out to grip his shoulder; Dean's impotent—_that's right, Dean, impotent_—raging turned to anguished silence, and that was satisfying on multiple levels.

So was Sam's latest discovery, really. He could go out with a nice touch of drama, which would be some compensation for the tedium the Winchester boys had inflicted on him in the past week. Though the entire week thing was his fault, he admitted fairly. After he'd finished with John—and finished John off—he'd left them to their own devices, letting them believe they'd slipped out from under his radar while he attended to other business. Once it became clear, though, that the boys had stopped hunting and were criss-crossing the country, going from contact to contact and library to library, he had to head off the possibility that they'd find a way to shield themselves from his perception. So he followed the beacon that was Sam back to the two brothers and slipped into Dean to watch and wait.

Maybe he needn't have bothered with the watching-and-waiting part. He'd wanted to avoid making the same mistake that he had with John, but Sam was so at a loss to recognize the Dean who appeared after their father's death, the Dean who wouldn't talk and couldn't eat and didn't even pretend to sleep, that Sam wouldn't have seen anything suspicious in a damned thing that he did. Nonetheless, he spent a few days as a silent observer in Dean's body, absorbing his thoughts and memories. He'd never before cared about Dean one way or another, except to note his utility in keeping Sam alive, but now it was a nice little bonus to soak in Dean's despair, enjoy his frustration at Sam's nurturing and hovering, and feed on his aching loneliness when he succeeded in shooing his brother away for a few hours. All the inactivity began to wear on him, however, and he was relieved to bring his Dean-hosted vacation to an end the day Sam came up with something that could finally spur his brother into action.

"Hey," Sam had said softly after returning from another library run. He took in without comment the closed curtains and the muffin that sat untouched where he'd left it that morning, next to the latte that he'd bought on the grounds that the milk at least had protein. Long since accustomed to the silence, he walked over to Dean's chair in the darkest corner of the room.

"You doing okay, big brother?" he asked, putting his hand on the back of Dean's neck and touching their foreheads together. He didn't expect any answer to the question; the quasi-embrace was what served as the weather balloon. If Dean grumbled and shoved him immediately, Sam knew he was on an upswing; if he waited a few seconds before grumbling and shoving, he was sinking into another trough.

He hadn't noticed any difference in Sam's voice or touch, but Dean looked up dully. "What is it, Sammy?"

"I need you to look at something." Sam waited for Dean's slight nod before laying some papers and photocopies out on the table. Dean flinched when he saw his father's handwriting in among Sam's notes; Sam's hand fluttered as if to touch him again, and then stopped. "These were hidden in the truck."

Frowning, Dean scanned over the photocopies of old fire marshals' reports and new missing persons' announcements, yellowed newsclippings of young bereaved husbands taped next to fresh ones of older bereft fathers, handwritten tables cross-referencing names and dates. He froze, crumpling the paper in his fist, when he came to the last page. It was blank except for the underlined date, "November 2."

"Same date Mom died," he said.

"And Jess," Sam reminded him.

Dean looked at him apologetically. "Exactly six months after your birthday," he sad, flipping back through the notes. "Were they all your age?"

"They were all twenty-three, yeah. And they all went missing on the date of their births plus six months. I don't know why that's important, but it could explain why it's left me alone since that night." Sam piled up the papers, hiding the ones with their father's handwriting from view in the middle of the stack. "Dean, I don't think Dad wanted me to shoot hi—the demon for revenge."

Dean flinched again. "November second is four days from now," he said. Dread and adrenaline flooded his every cell—a welcome change from the lassitude of depression. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, thinking quickly. "Pack up, Sam. It moves through people, right? So we get on the road, we keep moving, and we don't contact anyone until the third. Okay?"

It was the longest string of words he'd spoken since their father died. And once more damned if he could what Sam was thinking, but Dean snapped, "No, Sam. Absolutely not."

"Dean." Sam sat on the bed and looked at his brother with that annoying earnestness of his. "We have to. This isn't about Jess anymore, it isn't about Mom, it isn't about"—his voice hitched—"about Dad. It's not about revenge. It's about more and more people dying if we don't stop it."

"And how do you think we'll do that, Sammy?" Dean's anger and fear were perfect: they'd make him that much easier to take. "The Colt's gone, Dad's gone, what the hell are we going to do?"

"The Colt was one way to kill it. We don't know it was the only way." Sam ratcheted up the earnestness and added a touch of resolute conviction. "We'll leave that afternoon, but I want to go through the libraries here until then. There's a chance I'll find something there that we sure as hell won't find driving around at random. Please, Dean."

The conviction, earnestness, and pleading did it: Dean agreed. He'd possessed him that night, as soon as Sam went out to forage for something his brother would eat. It was the perfect time to take him: he could savor every moment of Dean's mounting despair as the date inevitably approached. He let Sam think that Dean's renewed appetite had come from the reinvigorating effects of knowing there was an immediate danger to fight, and that evening…Well, it had been a risk, but he was so damned bored that he set about discovering whether Sam really would do anything for his brother.

Surprisingly, the answer was 'yes.'

* * *

Dean reached new heights of obnoxiousness as they headed out to their hiding place. The boy didn't have the force of will his father did—he probably would've developed it now that he was out from under John's thumb, but that point was moot—but he was a much greater aggravation. John would turn inward, mustering his strength before making an attack and retreating again. Dean, though, continually blustered, taunted, and probed for weaknesses. Mid-drive he seized upon a new method to annoy—singing at the top of his mental lungs. He sent back a promise to carve the lyrics into Sammy's precious skin, and either because Dean believed him or because Sam's skin was a touchy subject, the threat bought some blessed—not literally, of course—peace for the rest of the trip.

"Another one of Dad's holing-up places," he explained as they pulled into the drive of the isolated cabin. Sam blinked, jerking out of a reverie, and nodded as if he hadn't thought to wonder how Dean knew about the place. Losing his edge, not that John had ever succeeded in honing Sam to the same edge that he did his brother.

The lodge's isolation was perfect, but he regretted not picking someplace smaller when Sam insisted that he dump salt not merely over the cabin's door and windows, but in a circle around the entire damn thing. He actually did it, too—the Winchesters weren't the only ones who deluded themselves into thinking they could be a threat to him, and it'd be a nice touch to give another self-styled hunter a tip that sent him off to find one boy missing and the other's mutilated body inside several rings of protective circles.

When he got back, Sam was sitting cross-legged inside the circle with his head bowed. He was actually praying with their mother's rosary. Book-smart, Sam was. No sense at all, no comprehension of how the world really works.

"It's done," he said. "You okay?" Not that he cared much, but it seemed the thing to ask.

Sam nodded, holding up a finger, and murmured his way through the last decade. "Yeah," he said when he'd finished.

"Good." He watched Sam put away the rosary, and then went with another round of repetitious, but always effective, jabbing at Dean. "It'll be okay, Sam," he said. "I promised, remember? Nothing's going to hurt you while I'm alive."

Sam looked up, all gooey-eyed. "I know."

Dean made another tedious effort to batter his way out, and he was hit by a sudden foreboding that Sam was about to launch into one of his awkward declarations of fraternal gratitude. Enough was enough—he marched into the circle to haul Sam off his ass and get started. Sam leveraged himself up with the arm he offered, then yanked forward hard. Stumbling, he felt a hot, stinging slash across his forearm as Sam twisted out of his grasp and out of the circle.

"What the hell?" he snarled. He regained his footing in time to see Sam shaking the knife like an aspergillum, spattering blood over the runes inked into the circle.

Runes that were different from the design Sam had shown him.

He looked down at his feet, where Sam had been sitting. Runes that hadn't been on the design at all.

"Son of a _bitch_," he said.

And the worst thing about possessing Dean Winchester was that he couldn't hit the fucker when he gloated.

"Not bad," he said in Dean's most careless voice. "Guess you found something in the library after all."

Sam went for his backpack, keeping his body half-turned so that he could watch him without looking at him directly, and kept his mouth shut.

"It took you long enough to figure out it was me, though," he said, kneeling down to examine the sigils. "Dean guessed about your father in ten minutes. He's not surprised, mind you, that it took you this long to look past your own nose. But he's still hurt."

"I knew after that night," Sam said quietly.

He hadn't expected Sam to answer at all. This could be good. "Which night, Sammy? The night Dean hammered you unconscious?"

Sam set his jaw—again—and didn't answer. He kept going, relishing the chance to torment the boy openly.

"That first time, Sammy? I think it was sweet. Dean thinks it's the only time in your life that you did something just for him. Didn't take too long for it to become all about Sammy, but even so, it was a nice gesture."

And it had been so easy: '_Sammy, I need...just this one thing. Just this once. Please._' At first Sam drew back, shocked and reluctant, but when he sank to his knees, it felt like a lot more than fraternal duty. He'd eased Sam into it, running Dean's fingers through his hair and muttering first the good-natured insults that substituted for expressions of approval and praise when Sam was an adolescent and needed a father, and then, softly enough that Sam wouldn't be sure he'd heard them, the endearments Dean had used when they were very young and he was trying to be the mother they both needed. Sam had cringed from the sickness, but once he'd given in…well, Sam had youth on his side and he had centuries of experience on his. It had gone on for hours, and he'd made sure Sam loved every dirty minute of it.

"It was a little more contact with you than I really wanted, Sammy, but it was worth it to see John Winchester's boy yowling like a cat in heat with his own brother's tongue up his ass and begging for the fuck of his life." Sam flinched, and he pushed on, "And it was, wasn't it? The fuck of your life. You'll never be able to get it out of your head."

Sam winced again, and dug into his backpack. He studied the runes more thoroughly. The circle was breakable, but not easily. Especially not with Dean fighting him in earnest.

"So, what're you gonna do, try an exorcism?" he asked as Sam began inking another pattern around the one confining him. "Waste of your time, Sam. And your brother. It won't kill me."

A heartbeat passed, and Sam lifted his head to look him straight in the eye. "It killed your daughter," the Winchester boys said in unison.

He snarled, jerking around to turn his back to Sam, nostrils flaring as he brought under control the annoying adrenal responses that came with emotion when he possessed these creatures.

"If there's ever a ritual that could destroy me," he said, turning around and sounding as neutral as he could after that embarrassing display of weakness, "it's been lost for a thousand years."

"Not lost," Sam answered. "Rare."

He felt an unfamiliar, unpleasant shiver of anxiety as Sam sketched an intricate pattern on the floor, and tried to bring the conversation back under control. "All right," he said, going with the obvious, "you know what I want."

"Yes," Sam responded quietly, covering the penciled lines in black ink.

He turned with Sam as he moved around the circle, and he did i not /i like the looks of that design. "Well? You know the drill: you come with me, Dean walks out of here, goes on with his pathetic life. I won't touch him."

Sam didn't answer.

"Do we have a deal?" he pushed.

Sam kept his dark head bowed over the drawing. "No deal."

"Seriously?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "Ouch. That's cold. After everything he's done for you."

"You're lying." Sam's hand faltered, and he gripped the brush tighter. "This isn't about me."

"Huh." He raised an eyebrow even though Sam wasn't watching, because he'd picked up Dean's stupid habits while inhabiting him. "That's the first time Dean's ever heard you say _that_."

Sam shook his head. "You'll take me if you can get me, but you care more about getting revenge on him." He took a deep breath. "No matter what I do, he won't leave here alive."

"What, you're not even going to try to save him?" He flashed Sam a shark-toothed grin when he looked up again. "You're right, he won't. And you want to know the saddest thing about Dean, Sammy-boy? You're going to run, leave him to die alone, and he's _glad_. He's trying to figure out how much time he can buy you."

"I'm not going to leave him," Sam told him.

He noticed that Sam didn't challenge the dying part, and had a very bad feeling that Sam knew what he was drawing was more than a binding spell. "What tipped you off?" he asked.

Sam's face flooded a dull brick-red. "The last time."

"Ah. The last time." He smirked. Credit where credit was due—Dean had a good range of smirks. "When you went from blushing virgin to screaming for your big brother to fuck you harder?"

And screaming more than that. Sam had put up an unexpected resistance when he tried to get to the actual fucking part of the evening—'_This is sick, Dean, this is too far_'—but by then he'd been stroked, licked, and fingered into a near-Pavlovian reaction to Dean's touch there. A little tongue action—after all, it was Dean's tongue, what did he care?—and Sam was more than ready. And once he had Sam on his hands and knees, rocking with the slow, relentless thrusts of Dean's cock, it was so easy for a few words to prompt him, a few questions to get him to babble what he wanted Dean to hear—'_Dean, Dean, I'm burning up, I need it, I'm on fire, Dean, I'm gonna _die _if you don't…_' Dean had retreated to mulish silence in whatever corner of his brain was still left to him, but he couldn't escape the feel of his own firm hand holding Sam in place when his writhing turned to near-struggling or the sound of his own voice whispering '_It's okay, Sammy, trust me, I'll take care of you, little brother_,' and he'd felt every last shiver of orgasm when he'd let go just as Sam's cries stilled and his body went limp.

"Yeah." Sam looked down again. "It lacked subtlety."

He was going to tear Sam's tongue out just on principle, but he was right. "So does Dean," he commented, a point that Sam did not contest as he began marking a pentagram around his new set of symbols.

And no, he didn't like the looks of that at all.

"_He's going to burn your sorry ass_," Dean chortled.

He swatted the little shit down again and went back to tormenting Sam. "Dean was disgusted, you know. Repulsed. Not just by the incest, but by the rest of it too." He colored his tone with the disapproval Sam had heard so often from John, but never from his adored older brother. "He thought you were more of a man than that. And think of your father, Sam. He never much cared what you did as long as it didn't interfere with the Winchesters' futile little quest, but this? It would kill him." _If I hadn't done it already_, he left unspoken.

Sam jerked his shaking hand away from his runes just in time to keep from splattering ink on the design, and he pressed his advantage. "Speaking of John Winchester: remember that _unsubtle_ moment when you were whining about the burning and begging for it to stop? That's how your father died. The burning was literal, though. Dean was thinking of that as he came, right when you were passing out."

Sam turned away, retching, and he let Dean's near-military posture slouch in annoyance. "So weak. Dean would have come in here and tried to shut me up instead of puking in a corner. His own fault for always protecting you when John tried to toughen you up."

He grinned at Sam's back, knowing he could hear the smile in his voice. "Ever wonder why he did that? Pathetic as he is, he always took care of you because he wanted someone to love him. And look how you turned out. God, he's disappointed in you."

Sam turned back around, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Don't bother."

"Too tough for you to hear?" he taunted.

Sam gave him a disgusted look. "You can't hurt him like that. You can't feed me some crap like that and make him think I believe it."

"Sammy-boy, you are seriously underestimating his self-esteem issues."

Sam looked into his eyes but somehow past him, and he wondered for the first time if Sam could see his brother. Maybe, in his disgust at Sam's whiny refusal to develop his gifts, he'd underestimated their strength.

"Let's get this out of the way," Sam said. "Dad stuck Dean with me way too much, and sometimes I was a total brat, and he thinks that sometimes I'm _still_ a total brat. It hurt him like hell when I left, he thinks Dad fucked up some but I still owe him more respect, and he feels guilty as hell about it, but he's a little bit relieved that Dad died because that fucked up the last of our lives so bad that he thinks I wouldn't leave him after that."

He was breathing harder. "My dad and me, there was unfinished business there. There isn't with Dean. You're not going to hurt him by feeding me some lie and making him think I believe it," he repeated, "and you're not going to hurt me by telling me what I already know."

Irked, he seized on the one exploitable thing in Sam's little speech. "He _thinks_ you wouldn't leave him? Sounds like you would."

"I would've stayed as long as he needed. And then…" Sam did the looking through his eyes thing again. "I wasn't going to live in the Impala forever, but I swear, man, we would've found something that worked for both of us."

Sam knelt back down to his design, moving with more purpose, as if he was steeling himself to wrap things up. "He believes me, and I'm not going through the rest of it for your fucking entertainment."

And the hell of it was, the little bastard was right.

He watched Sam finish the drawing, trepidation mounting with each line, and tried another tack. "Forgot to wish you a happy birthday, Sammy. Twenty-three and a half." He cocked Dean's head inquiringly. "You know, you've never been the hunter that your father was. Or Dean. Without them, do you think you'll see twenty-four?"

Sam shrugged indifferently. "No," he said, eliciting a satisfying inward howl from Dean. "How many of your children do you think I'll take out first? Their numbers aren't legion, you know. Not as many as I expected, even."

"What would you know about it?" he asked sharply. Too sharply—Sam knew he was onto something.

Sam dug a set of squat black candles out of his bag, and oh yes, he knew what he was doing. It had to be a bluff: Sam knew that while he would still be bound within the circle, he could leave Dean before Sam completed the ritual. And then he _was_ going to break the holding spell, because damned if he was going to stay here trapped inside a ring of discounted Halloween candles.

"The ones on Dad's list—the ones like me." Sam moved around the circle, arranging the candles. "Some of them showed up dead later, some disappeared for good. Maybe there's something about us that lets us fight you off, or maybe the ones you killed were just got too annoying to hold on to. Bet Dean's driving you crazy right now, isn't he?" A smile ghosted across Sam's face, and he swore internally that one way or another, that'd be the last smile Sam ever gave anyone. "But the ones who were never found aren't dead. They chose to go with you."

"Huh," he said, lifting an eyebrow not out of habit, but to torment Sam with the familiar mannerism. "Not bad, Sammy. You're smarter than your father. Smarter than Dean, too, but that's not saying much, is it?"

"Maybe." Sam focused his eyes on him. "He always was a better shot, though."

It was _subtle_, he'd give the boy that. He snarled, finally abandoning the pretense of unconcern as Sam set down the final candle and squared his shoulders, looking pale and sick.

"You can trap me here," he growled, "but _he's_ the one you'll destroy. And it'll take hours, Sam. He'll die screaming and begging you to make it stop."

"No," Sam said softly. "He won't."

He stepped up to the very edge of the circle, almost touching the invisible wall protecting him, and once more looked past the yellow eyes glowing from his brother's face. The little bear-cub was gone; the Sam that stood there instead was resolute, grim, and broken.

"Dean..." Sam whispered.

He shifted his focus inward as Dean made another futile attempt to escape, and felt a shiver in the air as Sam crossed the plane between them. Ice-cold lips brushed his forehead, cool steel kissed his ear, and the bullet fired into Dean's brain burned as white-hot as hellfire.

He staggered, stunned, and Sam broke his fall. As Sam clutched at him, choking out every inane banality he had heard whispered to a hundred beloved dying—'_I'm sorry, Dean, I love you, it's okay, big brother, Dad's waiting and I won't be long, so sorry, Dean, I love you, I love you_'—the impossible happened: he lost his grip on Dean's life-force. By the time Sam had sunk crying to the floor with his brother sprawled across his lap, Dean's soul had slipped free.

Enraged, he gathered himself together to abandon Dean's body and this maudlin fraternal pietà—and something yanked him back. It was the bullet; he could feel it now. Blessed by holy women and men from a half-dozen faiths, it tugged at him, holding him like a magnet holds iron filings. He was trapped in Dean's useless corpse.

No. Not a corpse. Dean's heart was still beating, his chest was still rising and falling in shallow breaths. The bullet that had ricocheted through his skull had scrambled the centers of intellect and emotion, the thoughts and memories and spirit that were Dean like so many eggs. But it had left undamaged the knots and tangles of nerves that controlled the vital functions; he was inhabiting not a corpse, but a living paralyzed body. He was _ensouling_ the body, and Sam Winchester, that whining whelp of a jumped-up ghost chaser, had found what he'd thought lost for a thousand years—a way to obliterate a soul.

Sam hugged him, gasped in a few ragged breaths, and then brought himself under control. Grimly, he waited for some last mawkish gesture as Sam lowered him to the floor—a final kiss on the forehead, perhaps, and closing Dean's eyes as he arranged him in a semblance of sleep. Instead, Sam's face hardened into an expression worthy of his father as he leaned forward to speak directly into his ear.

"What Jessica and my mom felt. What my dad did. What you said Dean would feel when he burned alive…" Sam's words were clipped and vicious. "When they say someone like _this_ doesn't feel pain, what they really mean is, there's no consciousness there to perceive it."

Sam stood up and roughly rolled him onto his side. "I'd tell you to go to hell, but you won't make it there."

He stared at the front point of the pentagram, Sam's parting shot ringing in his ears. He couldn't do a damn thing but watch as the flames sprang up when Sam began reading out the ritual, watch them flow along the complex design to form a latticework around them, watch them glint off Dean's amulet as they rushed in to consume him.

And somewhere, Dean Winchester was gloating.

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_Additional author's notes_:

Any and all feedback is welcome, and there's more fic here and on my lj page if you just can't get enough of my writing.

Just for the record, I've got nothing against the University of Pennsylvania's faculty. It's a great school with strengths in Religious Studies, History, and Folklore—a combination that, as near as I can tell, means that it's the most likely place in the country to have the resources Sam would need. In Texas, the boys were at the University of Texas, Austin, which has a fantastic classics program, but I don't know that it's as strong in the medieval period. I'm not saying I really do know, mind you, so don't decide where to apply to grad school based on my say-so. The boys have also visited the several universities in the Bay Area, Columbia, UCLA, the University of Michigan, Yale (using a faked letter from Stanford Library requesting access for Sam), and went back to their own hometown of Lawrence. It was a really busy month or so. Why am I rambling on about this, you ask? No special reason. I'm mostly taking up space so that the faint of heart who want to see the promised additional warnings before reading the story can avoid seeing its end. This site does the fanfic world a great service, but it really annoys me that we can't control the line spacing.

I'd like to fill up some more space, but the only thing left to do is pimp my fic further, and even I have limits.

Okay. Have we left enough space yet?

* * *

**Additional story warnings**: this fic contains not-100-percent-consensual sex between an unwitting Sam and Demon!Dean, as well as character death. 


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